Questionable Merits
by M-Maltesers
Summary: Infernal Affairs. Yan and Keung discuss the merits of having a good masseuse and in the process, Yan thinks over Keung and some old, unwanted memories. Drugs, violence.


Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I ever hope to own the rights to Alan Mak and Andrew Lau's _Infernal Affairs_ Trilogy. And how fortunate we all are for that.

_Summary_: Infernal Affairs. Yan and Keung discuss the merits of having a good masseuse and in the process, Yan thinks over Keung and some old,unwanted memories.

_Author Notes_: Any feedback appreciated. If you've never seen Infernal Affairs, see the original before it is remade as Martin Scorsese's _The Departed_.

There are a few scenes in the trilogy where Keung discusses the merits of a good masseuse, or what doesn't make a bad one anyway, so I guess that's what I was thinking when I wrote this.I really like Keung, despite his obvious lack of intellect… I also love the way Keung and Yan interact, thus you get this strange piece of writing. I call this crack of the highest degree. Literally.

**Questionable Merits**

Yan found Keung at the bar. His head was cast downwards and his slumped shoulders suggested that he'd had a late night; or rather, later than usual at least.

It was already three in the afternoon. The clock on the wall ticked slowly and methodically, counting down the minutes until Sam would find them and send them off again to negotiate; re-negotiate and negotiate some more. Sometimes it came down to threats, sometimes blackmail.

And more often than not, there was a body at the end of the day.

The first time Yan had watched Hau shoot someone; he'd been shocked; sickened even. He'd seen the bodies thrown into the fire; he'd watched them burn; crisp and black and he'd smelt the smell of burning flesh; burning hair and carbon and all those prayer papers thrown in with them.

And when Hau was shot, he'd clung desperately; instinctively.

Yet afterwards it became second nature.

Kill or be killed.

There was no such thing as an ally. There was no sworn enemy; only yourself and everyone else in the world. You couldn't cling – not even to hope.

It was the law of the streets. Like animals they had become selfish; living only to live, killing for their own survival and burning what remained. Civilisation was built up around them, and they pulled it down; they burnt it down with their lawlessness and corruption.

No one lasted long here. The further in you were pulled, the higher the flames rose and any hope of ever turning back was extinguished. In this world; this world, which existed only in the minds of its prisoners and wardens, your only companion, was death. She was seductive and she flirted and teased and left you breathless and scared shitless –

And yet, the thought was soothing.

Your only saviour would ever be death.

There would never be any escaping your fate here. You were in the triads for life – and for death.

And when you were a triad, death was waiting just around the corner.

Yan watched for a moment, caught by the effect of the light on Keung's hair and wondering why anyone would ever choose to walk this path.

But Keung was playing with his hair again; hand grasping and letting go of his pony tail in a repetitive motion.

Yan walked into the room, pulled back a bar stool and jumped up on it, plonking his lunch down on the counter in front of him.

The large polystyrene cup squeaked against the polished wooden counter. The white foam was cheap and smelt of chemicals Yan could never quite place. He lifted the lid quickly and watched the soup slosh around inside. "Where's Sam?" he asked with a slight raise of one eyebrow.

Keung lifted up his head and stared blankly. There was a slightly dazed look on his face; pupils slightly dilated and an unnatural sheen of sweat on his body. He stopped playing with his hair and rubbed at his neck. "Out."

"Where?"

Keung shrugged. "Something about the Thai."

Yan grunted and snapped his chopsticks in half, wondering what Keung meant. Obviously he didn't know any more than that, or else he'd have spilled it by now.

The room was a little warmer than Yan had expected, so he peeled off his jacket and dropped it across the stool next to him. He flexed his left arm and winced. The pain was still there.

Keung watched the action. "Does it still hurt?"

Yan turned his head quickly and watched him with a careful eye. "Yeah, what do you think?" Then he grinned and laughed. "Try it, Keung. Ever had a bullet through the arm?"

"Why didn't you go to the hospital?" Keung pushed, looking worried.

Yan rolled his eyes. "And say what? I'm a triad, come fix up my arm so I can shoot off another few heads?"

Keung blinked and stared as though waiting for the punch line.

Yan rolled his eyes at his companion's apparent naivety. "You know what it's like. It's just another record."

Keung nodded in that way that made Yan laugh. He nodded as though he understood everything, but he was naive. He'd been here as long as Yan, but he knew nothing. He understood the basic rules, but sometimes he just didn't know how to play the game.

Keung was stupid like that. Stupid, but he was the closest thing Yan had to a friend. Anyway, he lacked the intelligence to betray Yan; to ever figure out that he was a cop; one of _those_.

Yan grinned and hit Keung's head lightly. "You and me… we're not supposed to exist."

Keung grinned back. "So how come I still have to pay taxes?"

Yan rolled his eyes and poked at Keung with his finger. "Oi. You know that stuff's all under the table. You probably pay two cents tax and those guys are wondering why you're not dead yet."

Keung grinned. Yan was smart like that. "So where were you this morning?"

Yan picked up his abandoned chopsticks and stuck them into the polystyrenecup. He shovelled a mouthful of noodles into his mouth, biting off the ends that wouldn't fit in.

He mulled over the question in his mind and for a moment, almost contemplated telling the truth.

But lies were so much easier.

"Masseuse," he grunted after swallowing his mouthful and before shoving in another one.

Keung grinned. "Which one?"

"One with the buckteeth."

Keung wagged his finger like an old sage giving advice, but the comical look on his face ruined it all. "You shouldn't take the ugly ones. Look at me and look at you. You're screwed Yan. I'm not. I get the good ones; you get the ugly ones."

Yan snickered. "So if she had double D's and kept her mouth closed, is she better or worse than your one who looks like she ate a cow?"

Keung waved his finger again. "But she doesn't have buckteeth. You have to watch out for those ones. But the ones who are even worse are the ones with hairy legs."

Yan chuckled again, finding more and more amusement in Keung's words of advice. "Oi," he flashed his teeth. "I don't have buckteeth, right?"

Keung frowned. "Nope."

"So I'd be a good masseuse then." Yan concluded, smirking.

"But you have hairy legs," Keung stated insistently.

"So I'm not a good masseuse 'cause my legs are hairy as your arse." He took another large mouthful of noodles and nearly spat them out again when Keung started rolling up his sleeves.

"Oi!" Yan said blankly. The bar was currently empty of patrons; the only patrons it ever had were triads, but that didn't mean he trusted them. "What are you doing?"

"Prove to me then!" Keung demanded in his childish fashion.

Yan stared at him dubiously. "Prove to you _what_?"

Keung stubbornly stuck to his idea. "Prove to me that I'm wrong."

Yan looked him up and down and waved his hand. "You're crazy… and you're on crack."

Keung gave him a strange look. "They diluted it. You weren't here so boss made me take it."

Yan gave him a quick look, hiding his concern. "You didn't tell me that before."

Keung shrugged. "It wasn't bad."

"Anything else you didn't tell me?" Yan picked some chilli out of his noodles and stared Keung straight in the eyes.

Keung opened his mouth to respond and then stopped. He grinned. "Here, Yan. You're my henchman. You want to know, you've got to prove me wrong. Then we'll be even, huh?"

Yan's eyebrow twitched.

Keung stuck out his arm with a silly grin on his face.

"If you're so good, do it yourself."

Keung leaned in closer, blinking comically. "Hey, who rescued you last week when you tried to do that Mainlander in?" He stuck out his chest as he spoke, causing Yan to chuckle. "Huh? Huh?"

Yan put down his chopsticks and placed his hands on Keung's right forearm. "You owe me one."

"Oi! I had to snort that shit for you, don't give me that look."

Yan stared at Keung for a moment. There was a slight flicker of fear in Keung's eyes, and then he grinned. "Boss paid me for it though."

Yan forced a slight smile; just a slight movement at the edge of his mouth. Then he looked back down towards Keung's arm and slowly started to move his fingers.

Keung wasn't particularly brave. He, unlike Yan, still possessed the fear of death. He, unlike the others, didn't ever think about what lay around the corner. Instead, he looked straight ahead. He couldn't see death with her seductive eyes and long, bloodied fingernails. He didn't shoot without thinking; he avoided the fights and stuck to his job driving Sam, rather than play the negotiator with half a hand on a briefcase and half a hand on a gun.

Keung was naive. Or perhaps he knew he was already too far down the path to hell. Perhaps he knew death was waiting just around the corner. Perhaps that was how he coped.

Ignorance perhaps, was indeed bliss.

Keung blinked at Yan, watching his fingers work magic on his arm. "Hey, you're pretty good."

Yan looked up. "Really?"

Keung nodded emphatically. "Boss said he's sending you again tomorrow."

Yan stopped for a moment. What did that mean? "What's tomorrow?"

His companion gave a shrug. "Don't know. Boss wouldn't tell me."

Yan tried to tell himself that tomorrow was just another day, but the skin on Keung's arm was rough and the scars were ugly. Cuts and bruises and reminders of their daily existence.

Keung watched Yan's expression change and he grinned suddenly. "I bet boss will pay you a shitload for tomorrow though."

"Like being paid to have my head cut open with a bottle of gin?"

Keung grinned. "More. I bet you'll get ten masseuses with double D's."

Yan snorted. He'd better get more than just masseuses with double D's, because if he they had buckteeth, then he was screwed.

Keung's logic may have been stupid and came with a whole lot of doubt attached, but maybe that was all Yan needed. If their world was one of anarchy, then logic need not make sense. Besides, none of the other rules applied.

But then again, maybe Yan was already too far gone. He'd been walking the path since he was a kid. He had been born into a family where drugs and murder were the norm. When he was born, he was already halfway to hell.

By the time Hau died, he had sealed his own fate.

Yan couldn't bring himself to believe anymore.

Men who were hell bent on survival no longer _believed _in anything.

Death, after all, was always only just around the corner.

-** MM **-


End file.
